My friend Robert tagged me (sorry, no link, don't know how to do that). Todd is always after me to blog more. This counts, right?

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car):
Sparkle Liberty

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):
Double Dark Chocolate Sugar

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal):
Blue Gorilla (mine was really blue dog but I didn't want to copy robert)

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born):
Michelle Lufkin

5. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink):
The Pink Pepper

6. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers):
Buck Howard

7. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ):
Ann Troy

8. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter):
Tareilo Tacoma

9. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower):
Autumn Daffodil

10. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + ie or y):
Apple Gownie


11. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree):
Pigs in a Blanket Mimosa

12. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”):The Crazy Quilting Wind Tour

I'm tagging:

Jason
Rachel
Lance
Amy
(again, no links. sorry.)

What I Did on My Christmas Vacation

I had myself totally prepared to have the best Christmas ever. New town, new job, new friends...plus, old friends and family, trips back home, etc. Todd and I were both prepared for a phenomenal holiday season. And for the most part, I wasn't disappointed. In the three weeks before Christmas, I put up the tree and decorated the house, made cookies, and went to look at lights with the kids...Finley sang, all decked out in a Christmas dress, in a program at church and she stole the show. By December 23, the gifts were wrapped, and I spent the day baking and getting last minute things done.

Then, finally, the day arrived. Christmas Eve. Big deal at our house. That's when we celebrate with Todd's family. And, for the first time ever, we were having dinner at our house instead of Gigi's. That morning, Pop, Nonna, Papa and Gigi arrived with tons of gifts and lots of food. Just as we were about to sit down to dinner, the phone rang...

My dad was in the ER...he was disoriented and confused. He had the symptoms of a stroke. But the doctors didn't think it was a stroke.

I'll cut to the chase here. My dad had AMNESIA. Yes, that's right. AMNESIA. Transient Global Amnesia, to be exact. But we didn't find that out until 2 long, worry filled days later.

I'd never known anyone who actually had amnesia. Alzheimer's? Sure. Senility? Sure. And those things are awful. I don't mean to minimize the seriousness of those, by any means. But AMNESIA? That's the kind of thing you see on Murder She Wrote or One Life to Live! (Ok, I don't think I've seen it much on One Life to Live, but plenty on Days of Our Lives. Marlena is positively plagued with amnesia.)

Now, my dad's case wasn't as severe as Marlena's usually is. He knew who he was, and who we were, but he couldn't remember what was going on or where he was. Then, we'd tell him, and he'd forget. Almost instantly. Then he'd ask again. He did that over and over, all day long. He thought it was 2005. He couldn't remember where he worked. And he said his mom was 1,000 years old.

This was all preceded by his taking a trip to Wal-Mart to do some last minute Christmas shopping. And we all know, somewhere deep inside us, that as soon as we walk thru the doors of a crowded Wal-Mart, we could lose our grip on reality at any point. That's why I avoid Wal-Mart. I already walk a thin line between sanity and losin' it. I can't afford to push it.

By Christmas Eve night, he was back to normal. The doctors ran all kinds of test on him, but didn't find anything serious. (Thank You, Jesus)

He got back home late on December 26. Then we celebrated Christmas with my family. It was nice. And a little weird. Considering we had an amnesiac wearing a Santa hat sitting there in the recliner.

Can you belive that?

It's all true.

No one I know has ever heard of Transient Global Amnesia. Except for my friend Becky, who saw it on an episode of NCIS.

And THAT is what I did on my Christmas vacation.

My dad showed me this cool video of a "magnapinna" (or bigfin) squid.

We couldn't post the video, but I thought I could show you a picture of it.

JONAH.

OK, here are some long overdue pics of the family in October...


Here are the kids, trick-or-treating in Lufkin the weekend before Halloween.

At Moore Farms pumpkin patch in Bullard with the Straders.



At the Halloween party we threw with the Watsons and the Straders.

Downtown Tyler and Restaurant Review... from Todd Wright on Vimeo.

Blogging from my iPod touch....thank you Todd!

First of all, at about 4:30 Friday morning, I had a terrible nightmare. There was a little girl who kept pointing at my wedding ring, shaking her head. Because of this, I leaned over to the nun and whispered, "Sister, this child is of the devil." The nun freaked out. Then, I started talking in a really deep, scary, and comical voice (think "redrum"). Then I woke up, but had a really hard time going back to sleep.

I woke up for real at 7:45. We all started getting ready, because Todd had to work ON HIS DAY OFF. Todd's dad called and asked if we had been to the "donut parlor" and since we hadn't, he offered to bring the kids some donuts.
Once the kids had finished the donuts, we got our shoes on to leave. I spent a good 15 minutes looking for my keys, only to finally find them in my purse.
We headed out to see my mom and dad. My mom had made sausage jambalaya and it was GOOD. I mean, IT WAS GOOD, y'all.

My parents watched Finley while I took Jonah to get his hair cut. The lady who cut it kept calling him Joshua. That's a new one. People usually call him Noah. Actually most people call him Jonah. But if they're going to get it wrong, they say Noah.

We went and picked up Todd and headed up to the mall to play some "Lunar Mini Golf." I have to say, I was astounded by the price. Granted, I haven't played much mini golf (or putt putt, as I like to call it) since they closed down King Putt about 18 years ago. So I was expecting to pay around $2 per person. Nope. It was $8 per person. For an extra dollar, they threw in some glow-in-the-dark necklaces. Todd wore his as a headband.

Turns out, mini golf is a lot sweatier that I remember. It was hot in there, y'all. And another thing...I assumed with a name like Lunar Mini Golf, there would be some space ships and stuff in there. Again, nope. One side of the room had sea creatures, and the other had jungle animal. Go figure.

After golf, we headed home. Finley fell asleep in the car, and I was looking forward to a little nap myself. But when we got home, our power was out. So we laid Finley down, called in the power outage, and tried to decide if it was too hot to stay home. I suggested Todd go get us some ice cream, to help "beat the heat." Finley then revealed to us that she wasn't really sleeping, just cat napping. So she went with Todd to get ice cream, even though by then, the power was back on.

I ate my ice cream, then I ate my dinner. We fed the kids, then Jonah enjoyed a root beer float while he watched Garfield. I personally can't believe they even still make Garfield movies. In my mind, it's along the same lines as Alf. That boat has sailed, y'all.

Todd bathed the kids (thank you dear) and then we put them to bed. I was going to read but I couldn't find my book. So I went to bed.